But the Mercedes pair had no such troubles. Leading every lap of the race, Hamilton had more than enough time in hand to ask the team if he could take any extra precautions with reliability – just as Rosberg had in Australia.

2014 Malaysian Grand Prix team radio transcript

Lap*

From

To

Message

PR

Ayao Komatsu

Romain Grosjean

Radio check, Romain.

PR

Romain Grosjean

Ayao Komatsu

Yeah, radio check is OK. I could hear you and Gav on the radio Just a quick one for you guys – when I did the static bite-point at the end of the pit lane, the brake pedal is moving on its own. When the engine RPM goes up, the brake pedal does two things. So just for you to know.

PR

Ayao Komatsu

Romain Grosjean

OK, copy that Romain. It’s OK that you can hear. I was talking to Gav. OK, so clutch seven, please. Clutch seven. And then you’re going to do a static bite-point for the formation lap. After the start, we will go to torque seven please. Torque seven is more MGU-K release. And the procedure for the start is – two rolling bite-points, so one before turn 15, one in turn 15 and four burnouts starting from the exit of turn 15.

PR

Ayao Komatsu

Romain Grosjean

After you’ve finished the burnouts, I’ll ask you to go to fuel one, OK? That’s the one for race start creeping, if you see what I mean?

PR

Ayao Komatsu

Romain Grosjean

OK Romain, correction. We’ll go to fuel one now, please. So that you don’t have to do it after burnout.

PR

Nico Rosberg

Tony Ross

The rubber is coming off a little bit here on the steering wheel. Someone check the steering wheel, please?

From the inflection this sounds like a reply to an earlier, unbroadcast comment from Ricciardo.OK Daniel, it is a lot better for energy. So you’ll get less ‘K’ clipping if you keep this setting. We’ll get more ‘K’ release if you keep this setting.

OK Lewis, you’ve got double waved yellows at the last corner. Marshalls on track, so lose half a second. So the rain we see on the radar is very, very light. So nothing to worry about at the moment, but just keep us updated. Nico 0.1 seconds slower – gap at 11 seconds.

Massa is seventh, less than two seconds behind Button but with Bottas less than a second behindOK Felipe. Valtteri is faster than you, do not hold him up. Valtteri is faster than you, do not hold him up.

Thanks guys, well done. I’m just hundred percent sure I could have got the McLaren.

Lap: Refers to lap message was broadcast on. There may be a delay between messages being said and being broadcast. PR = pre-race; FL = formation lap; VL = victory lap.
Message: Repetitive or irrelevant messages omitted. Notes in italics. Highlights in bold.

75 comments on “2014 Malaysian Grand Prix team radio transcript”

I can foresee the Massa-Bottas situation happening again and Williams losing patience. I hope Bottas can do some good qualifying sessions – i think he could be the real deal. His professionalism is impressive.

I was in fact surprised that Williams used team orders, the same team that had so many internal fights in the past (Reutemann-Jones, Piquet-Mansell, Montoya-R. Schumacher). Still, I tend to agree with those who say the poor choice of words only enraged Felipe.

Perhaps if Rob Smedley had picked up the microphone instead of Rod Neslon and told the same stuff to Massa “Felipe you’re slower than Valterri, let him past” , Massa would have easily moved over just because of the sheer habit !!!!! LOL

Vettel was ahead by two seconds when the default 13 message was given. Riccardo wasn’t catching him up at all. Red Bull gave Riccardo the pitstop preference right after which brought him into DRS range again. Both Ricciardo and then Vettel were told respectively to keep a 2 secs gap to look after tyres. Are we sure default map 13 is what people think it is? There’s a ‘charge map 12, one-two’ order prior to that. For it to be a team order there had to be a similar message on Riccardo’s side and FOM wouldn’t have let it slip given the huge attention from the public?

I doubt this very much. This was Tony Ross’s reply – which indicated that Merc had an answer. They simply switched on to a “rich” engine mix. This would explain Rosberg subsequently pulling away.Lap 22: Tony Ross – So rich-9 at the end of this lap.

Massa’s was the fastest car in a straight line, and according to Bottas he was giving it everything on the straights. Add to that a bit more caution about taking out your team mate than a rival and I can see how it would be difficult to get past him.

Lap time wise, Bottas was about 3.5 – 5 tenths faster than Massa and Button in the last ten laps. Also, the speed traps from qualy shows that Massa could be about 5km/h faster than Button, still he couldn’t overtake him. And also, what JimG said.

@ardenflo@jimg Don’t forget how precious engine, sorry, power train components are this year. They’re only allowed five of each, so they need to be really particular. It makes more sense to call it a day and save putting any unnecessary stress on the engine parts this season if you think your afternoon is effectively over.

That was the worst drivers managing by Williams engineers. They could simply told Massa that Bottas is at different strategy and that he is chasing Magnusen instead of telling him that he is “faster than you”!!! It is frustrating for any driver to hear that kind of thing while fighting for positions. And they shouldn’t ask Bottas to attack Massa without confirmation from Massa that he will actually drop his guard at let through Bottas. That was bad management from the team. And another thing. It seems that Massa is too nervous right now and needs to relax a bit. I know that he thinks that this is his last couple of years in F1 but still. That’s why he was keen to retain his position. I think that even Alonso wouldn’t react that way cause he is comfortable with his results and reputation, while Felipe…. Maybe Im wrong?

@1abe ” Are you seriously saying that teams should wait for the slower driver’s permission before allowing the faster driver to overtake?”
No I don’t think that the team should ask anything from their drivers in the first place, because of the fact that they are racers employed to race everybody and gain positions. But if you inform Bottas to attack Massa because he is faster at the moment it would be wise to say at least that Massa is not willing to let go that position so that Bottas would know the risk. I never liked team orders and I go to extremes by saying that there should be a one team with one driver only, but that is my ideal world I guess. I’m just saying that if there are team orders in the first place, they should be better organized and sounding like you are giving up of something but to sound like you are doing the best for the team, and Massa wasn’t doing that at all.

The last part should be written like this:
” I’m just saying that if there are team orders in the first place, they should be better organized and NOT sound like you are giving up of something but to sound like you are doing the best for the team, and Massa wasn’t doing that at all.”
Sorry for my English and damn I need that edit button! :)

Seems to be a light error here, Keith Collantine – I presume you meant “chain”. Even with that correction, the sentence still does not read right grammatically.
“appeared to include an instruction from higher up the change of command were forced to give up on the idea.

What is clear, is that despite the way it looks on screen, there is still far too much tyre saving going on, and the drivers are simply pushing within the limits of these artificially created constraints; hence they are NOT pushing to their full capabilities. I thought we were saved from these wretched tyres this season.
What is the point of all these fuel saving or tyre saving malarkey? Of what use is this “skill” to racing drivers? To show they are “intelligent”?? Or they are doing their bit for the planet? Save tyres. Save fuel. Save the engine. Save the car. What will they be saving next? Themselves?? What silly nonsense!

On FL to LH “Strat mode4” can this be referring to charge stratification, can it be possible that they have multiple options for something that must happen in nano=seconds?
If so this is a serious advance in fuel/power management.

Vettel asking Charlie to tell Grosjean in French was hilarious! I wish that would have been on the broadcast! I think Vettel thought Rosberg’s car was losing oil because he may have gotten drops of something, probably rain, on his visor. I remember in Singapore 2012 when he said “Hamilton’s car is losing oil” right before Lewis retired.

It will be interesting to see if people start to say it’s the car that is winning the races if Lewis wins more by a large gap.

Well, reading all these transcripts I am convinced that Alonso does not exist. Really strange as I saw his car on footage.

About team orders in Williams: it doesn’t matter which words they used. There is a team and you have to conform with the rules in your team. Massa was not fighting for a win. So, he should have let Bottas through.

Actually it was quite funny reading the “excuses” that Williams told to Massa. “Cool the engine” “LIFT and COAST the car”. Really? Massa is not an easy driver anymore. If I were Massa I would just laugh in the face of my engineer.

Did anyone notice the subtle reply Riciardo gives when asked to fall back . Beautiful ! Top man Ricciardo .
Also , Williams have obviously not discussed this situation earlier as a possible scenario.
Whoa ! I never thought hit the beeps would be a radio conversation in f1 ;-)
Thanks a lot f1f for this feature . Top job !

6 Valtteri Bottas Jonathan Eddolls Well tell him to go through. I have more pace.

So, if I understood correctly, Valtteri is ordering his engineer to talk to Massa’s engineer so he can order Massa to overtake Magnussen.
Valtteri needs to chill down, me thinks, and learn that if he really has all that pace he must be able to overtake by himself or remain silent.
In any case, i think that to issue team orders at the SECOND race of the season when the drivers are 7º and 8º, must be some sort of world record…